Calling cards are frequently employed in the making of a telephone call. The term "calling card" hereinafter refers to any type of credit account mechanism including, but not limited to a telephone-company-issued card, such as the Bell Atlantic IQ Card and the SNET card, and a combined commercial credit card and telephone card, such as the AT&T Universal Card.
Conventional approaches to implement a calling card telephone call requires numerous, cumbersome, time consuming steps or actions to be taken by a caller. In a typical scenario, a caller who places a calling card telephone call must lift a telephone handset to obtain a dial tone and then manually enter access data on the telephone keypad to initiate communication with a central office which controls the calling card transaction. Upon a connection, the central office prompts the caller for additional information such as the card number, the personal identification number (PIN), if any, and the telephone number of the party to be reached. The caller, thus, must manually enter all of the above-noted information for each call in the transactional sequence prescribed by the central office. The transactional sequence for delivering the above information may vary according to the particular calling card being used and the particular central office which controls the transaction.
The process of placing a calling card telephone call may further be encumbered by requiring the caller to dial special codes (i.e., the number "9") to obtain access to a local exchange and, if necessary, an interexchange access code to connect the caller to his interexchange carrier of choice. Such additional codes are often necessary when calling from a hotel or hospital.
One approach to remedy the above problem is to install phones having magnetic readers such as those found in some airports and high credit card use areas. These special phones allow a caller to charge a call to a credit card. Because so few of these phones exist, a credit card caller must often either wait in line for this special phone or is forced to manually enter the credit card number by way of the keypad on a standard phone set. The magnetic card reader phone is impractical for hotel rooms and many other general locations. Furthermore, these special phones are only applicable to credit card charged calls and not for calling cards which, as described above, require interaction with a central office.
Another approach to solving the above problems is provided in U.S. Pat. No. 5,455,857 to McGuire which discloses an automatic telephone calling card. The calling card includes a microprocessor or logic circuit, keypad, storage device, tone generator, speaker and display. Telephone numbers and calling card numbers can be stored in the storage device through the use of the keypad on the card. In order to make a calling card call, the cardholder lifts the handset of a telephone to obtain a dial tone. The cardholder then selects access data to initiate communication with a central office (i.e., 1-800 number), places the card at the mouthpiece of the telephone handset and causes the card to generate a plurality of audio tones representative of the access data. The cardholder then responds to a signal from the central office by placing the card at the mouthpiece of the handset and a plurality of audio tones are generated representative of the card number. The cardholder continues this process until all information required by the central office is provided. Although the cardholder no longer needs to memorize or manually input the telephone numbers and the card number, the use of the card still requires numerous, cumbersome, time consuming steps to make a calling card telephone call.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,452,352 to Talton also discloses an automatic dialing card for use in automatically dialing account codes and phone numbers into a telephone. The card includes a memory, encoder, speaker, microphone and switch embedded into a circuit board, for inputting and outputting specific information depending on the use of the card. The circuit accesses the account by tones or signals fed through the receiver or direct data input from a small data bus. As with U.S. Pat. No. 5,455,857, the Talton card requires the card holder to place the card at the telephone receiver for each call.
In addition to the problems with automatic dialing cards as described above, both U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,455,857 and 5,452,353 are limited in their applications, particularly to the making of person-to-person calls. Automatic dialing cards cannot be used in connection with other devices such as an internet-ready device (i.e., computer with browser software) or a fax machine.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,497,411 to Pellerin discloses an access-control system for a telecommunication network. The system includes a portable memory device card for storing a resident personal identification number (PIN) of a user and a corresponding transaction profile including authorization codes. The card is used in combination with an access-control module (i.e., a terminal) coupled to the network. Such a system is overly complex and requires the use of both the card and the control module to make a calling card call.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need to provide an apparatus for simplifying the operations required of the caller to make a calling card telephone call. There is also a need to provide an apparatus that allows a user to simply enter the telephone number in the making of a calling card telephone call.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus which simplifies the task of a card holder when making a calling card telephone call.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus which requires minimal input by the card holder when making a calling card telephone call.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an apparatus in which the user is only required to enter desired telephone number to make a calling card telephone call.
It is also an object of the invention to provide an apparatus which, in addition to the above, selects the best calling card from a plurality of calling cards.